Group counts civilian toll

About 20,000 civilians were wounded in the Iraq war and the US-British occupiers were ignoring their suffering, a research group said, in what it termed the first study of the war's casualty toll. "The maimed civilians of Iraq have been brushed under the carpet," the Iraq Body Count said.

The Anglo-American group of academics and peace activists chided US and British postwar administrators for failing to set up programs for the wounded or pay compensation. "A sizeable, if as yet unknown, proportion of Iraqi families will contain a relative whose life was ended or put on hold by the US or British forces," it said in a report on its website.

The figures were based on news reports and counting by independent investigators up to July 6. The group said the reluctance to calculate the number of civilian wounded was inexcusable.